F-150 Lightning Powering Houses for Days

[Gurule92]

No update or news on this topic? Way more important than mirrors.

Less important than the wiper though so dont get ahead of yourself

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[firsttruck]

.....

I'm just not sure why I would want to buy some additional, expensive household batteries when I have huge batteries sitting in my vehicles? At least in my locale.

Are you the only one in the household?

Do you have refrigerator freezer?

 

[tidmutt]

Are you the only one in the household?

Do you have refrigerator freezer?

I am not, the number of people in the household varies, but there is at least two people and two Teslas.

We do have a refrigerator. No we don't have half a forest of venison stored in 20 chest freezers. LOL

I don't mean to say that no one should buy powerwalls, I'm saying why have additional redundant batteries if they are unnecessary. The batteries in my vehicle are much larger and we have two of them.

Also, if we are in the future and there is large EV penetration and they are all potential grid storage devices and a high percentage of them are connected to the grid what are the chances of needing long stretches of backup power of my own plus needing to drive long distances?

 

[JBee]

The battery degradation is also determined by the rate of discharge.

Households typically use power at a lower rate meaning battery cycling does not result in high cell degradation. In fact Supercharging your Tesla is way worse for battery degradation than regulated low power V2X will ever be.

So if you don't want to degrade your EV battery stop Supercharging.

If anything EM is sandbagging the feature until they launch their own with a few tweaks, because he doesn't want the competition to get ahead of themselves.

As for the house installation costs, this could be as simple as a automatic generator changeover switch, most of the rest of the protection can be implemented in software on the CT inverter side. There are $300 3kW solar inverters that can already do this, it's not hard to sync to the grid for V2G either for export. The Ford installation is just scalping first adopters and is an absolute joke.

 

[JBee]

A quick math follow up to get a feel for the battery cycling required to run a house continuously from a 140kWh CT pack. At a consumption rate of a pack per week, or roughly 18kWh day you end up with 52 recharge cycles a year. That would be 520 cycles in 10 years, if you ran your house flat out all of the time only from CT without any solar etc.

Now if you had at home solar etc recharging every day, your pack depth of discharge would be less than 14%, if you use power during solar production your battery use could be less than 5% of pack capacity per day. This is less than using Tesla camp mode overnight.

Regardless of what EM or the others pretend to say, or better put, do not elaborate on whatsoever, for whatever reason, the math that battery cycling degrades batteries prematurely is a red herring according to some very simple math anyone can do, if they can find an envelope.

Now imagine 20% of vehicles being EV and having V2G, and about half of them being plugged in at any one time, that would be the equivalent to the peak power grid capacity. Right now the USA is using 440GWh, which would be just 1kW per vehicle.

It works, and the more EV's with V2X the better, and the more bidirectional plug in stations at work and at retail outlets, schools etc the better.

 

[firsttruck]

I am not, the number of people in the household varies, but there is at least two people and two Teslas.
......

Thanks for answering the questions.

On average most non-apartment type dwellings have more than 2 residents and many might have residents unable to drive. Even if you normally have a vehicle for each resident that does not mean all vehicles are operational 24/7 every day of the year without fail or needing service. Even if today you have vehicle for every resident, the next family living there might not. Also once Robotaxis are common some households may reduce number of vehicles.

Even if normally you have 1:1 resident/vehicle ratio what if before the power outage the arrangements at the dwelling had changed:
1. there was a serious vehicle accident which severely damaged V2H EV and resident driver/passengers temporarily needed electrically powered medical equipment.
2. a guest/visitor required electrically powered medical equipment.
* I can imagine many more power outage scenarios

Dwellings types that have garages or parking spaces close enough for EV chargers have a high probability of having multiple residents.

Below census samples are from Canada but are likely similar for U.S.

--------

Average Household Size by Dwelling Type, 2011 Census, Capital Region
https://www.crd.bc.ca/docs/default-...ize-by-dwelling-type-2011-census.pdf?sfvrsn=2

--------

Household type including multigenerational households and structural type of dwelling: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations
Universe: Private households, 2021

Structure type​	ALL Households​	​	1-person only households​	​	multi-person households​	% multi-person​
Single-detached house​	7,872,305​	​	1,437,020​	​	6,435,285​	82​
Semi-detached house​	746,555​	​	164,040​	​	582,515​	78​

** I skipped other structure types (apartments, condo, etc)

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810013801


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......
We do have a refrigerator. No we don't have half a forest of venison stored in 20 chest freezers. LOL

These days even one combo refrigerator/freezer can hold many $$$ of food.

Anytime there is a power outage there is no garantee tht the outage will be over quick and food stores will immediately have food.

If you food from can/jar you might not eat the whole can/jar and have refrigeration would help reduce wastage.

....
I don't mean to say that no one should buy powerwalls, I'm saying why have additional redundant batteries if they are unnecessary. The batteries in my vehicle are much larger and we have two of them.

Also, if we are in the future and there is large EV penetration and they are all potential grid storage devices and a high percentage of them are connected to the grid what are the chances of needing long stretches of backup power of my own plus needing to drive long distances?

I think what you say above is good but I think most all single-detached houses, semi-detached houses, and duplex/triplex houses should have at least one PowerWall type stationary battery & control system.

Solar panels should go along with this which would be less useful if all the energy storage has in vehicles that might not be there when the sun shinning in the area.

Maybe this one PowerWall type battery could have less capacity than current Tesla PowerWall and hopefully prices drop.

Batteries in EVs could provide additional runtime.

Keep in mine that anyone that spent thousands $ on the Ford Intelligent Home Backup are locked into using a Ford vehicle for V2H (CSS-combo plug is used in non-standard way).

In the long run I think having at least one PowerWall type stationary battery & control system will not be much more expensive than having V2H with 0 stationary battery and V2H EV with at least 1 stationary battery will be more reliable and have significantly improved functionality.

 

[Crissa]

I am confused by many these comments that push for V2G when Elon and Drew are in agreement that Nickel-based cells will degrade faster with V2G. To me that is the end of the V2G story unless/until Tesla uses LFP cells in their cars (and for the CT he said they will not, and why).

He's wrong. Or being misquoted.

A day's worth of electricity for a whole house is a third of a charge. That's hardly heavy use. And that's just V2L. You could set the impact to less than that if you wanted to, for V2G and get imperceptible amounts of wear on the battery.

Even if normally you have 1:1 resident/vehicle ratio what if before the power outage the arrangements at the dwelling had changed:
1. there was a serious vehicle accident which severely damaged V2H EV and resident driver/passengers temporarily needed electrically powered medical equipment.
2. a guest/visitor required electrically powered medical equipment.
* I can imagine many more power outage scenarios

And what would they do without vehicle to load?

Not have enough power.

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

To be clear, V2G should be operated together with "affordable" local household stationary battery storage as well. The whole conversation about using it "only" as a backup system for power outages is dumb. That is not what V2G is for at all, you can't even use it for that if the grid is down as the anti-islanding will shut off V2G supplies.

The primary reasons for V2X is "energy capacity buffering", that give you the ability to bridge the "time" of supply and demand, over the whole range of energy needs. What this means is that over time V2X (so V2H, V2L, V2G, V2V etc) will replace and buffer the grid itself, by simply reducing demand on the grid in general, allowing for existing grids to supply more EV's, and by better optimizing the highly peak constrained and under utilized off-peak grid consumption times. The effect is that more Ev's with V2X the less the grid is used, to the point that many houses with enough solar would become either grid embedded generators for other users, or can be operated completely autonomously without even needing to be connected to or use the grid at all. If energy storage is ubiquitous, distribution grids will become redundant in lower latitudes, especially for housing where a reasonably small solar and battery array can achieve reliable power supply in a efficient house.

Another point worth raising here is that per kWh a CT is still way cheaper to buy than a Powerwall. So for larger consumers, parking a CT next to the point of consumption is much cheaper than buying just 3 Powerwalls. At that point the CT is your Powerwall, and is a "backup vehicle" instead. Having two means you have half the driving wear and tear too. Overall it's a no brainer unless you live in an apartment, to which I say, move. Why are you choosing to live in a animal battery?

 

[tidmutt]

Thanks for answering the questions.

On average most non-apartment type dwellings have more than 2 residents and many might have residents unable to drive. Even if you normally have a vehicle for each resident that does not mean all vehicles are operational 24/7 every day of the year without fail or needing service. Even if today you have vehicle for every resident, the next family living there might not. Also once Robotaxis are common some households may reduce number of vehicles.

Even if normally you have 1:1 resident/vehicle ratio what if before the power outage the arrangements at the dwelling had changed:
1. there was a serious vehicle accident which severely damaged V2H EV and resident driver/passengers temporarily needed electrically powered medical equipment.
2. a guest/visitor required electrically powered medical equipment.
* I can imagine many more power outage scenarios

Dwellings types that have garages or parking spaces close enough for EV chargers have a high probability of having multiple residents.

Below census samples are from Canada but are likely similar for U.S.

--------

Average Household Size by Dwelling Type, 2011 Census, Capital Region
https://www.crd.bc.ca/docs/default-...ize-by-dwelling-type-2011-census.pdf?sfvrsn=2

--------

Household type including multigenerational households and structural type of dwelling: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations
Universe: Private households, 2021

Structure type​	ALL Households​	​	1-person only households​	​	multi-person households​	% multi-person​
Single-detached house​	7,872,305​	​	1,437,020​	​	6,435,285​	82​
Semi-detached house​	746,555​	​	164,040​	​	582,515​	78​

** I skipped other structure types (apartments, condo, etc)

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810013801


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These days even one combo refrigerator/freezer can hold many $$$ of food.

Anytime there is a power outage there is no garantee tht the outage will be over quick and food stores will immediately have food.

If you food from can/jar you might not eat the whole can/jar and have refrigeration would help reduce wastage.



I think what you say above is good but I think most all single-detached houses, semi-detached houses, and duplex/triplex houses should have at least one PowerWall type stationary battery & control system.

Solar panels should go along with this which would be less useful if all the energy storage has in vehicles that might not be there when the sun shinning in the area.

Maybe this one PowerWall type battery could have less capacity than current Tesla PowerWall and hopefully prices drop.

Batteries in EVs could provide additional runtime.

Keep in mine that anyone that spent thousands $ on the Ford Intelligent Home Backup are locked into using a Ford vehicle for V2H (CSS-combo plug is used in non-standard way).

In the long run I think having at least one PowerWall type stationary battery & control system will not be much more expensive than having V2H with 0 stationary battery and V2H EV with at least 1 stationary battery will be more reliable and have significantly improved functionality.

It could be that you're right, but honestly, I would have to lose quite a few refrigerators worth of food to justify an additional powerwall. My ex has lost a few freezers due to door left ajar and that sucked, believe me, I know the drill. I've never experienced a power outage of more than a few hours in my lifetime. I realize many have experienced longer outages, or have different situations, but my point is that enabling all EVs to support various V2X systems seems like a no-brainer. Little additional wear on it's battery, better grid stability, backup power for the house for days if there is a general power outage. Multiple EVs makes this make more sense as well.

For Solar installs I agree, having a powerwall type of system probably makes sense. I work from home, so my car is usually home when the sun is shining. Or one of the cars is.

I'm thinking about it from a large numbers perspective. If you have tens of millions of homes with solar and EVs with V2G enabled then my solar is pumping power into the grid when I'm not connected. That means it may be charging some of those EVs or other battery storage. I'm also advocating that all EV charging would be V2G enabled. Let's say you drive to work and your office parking has a chargers. Your car could be supplying power to the grid, so you may actually be charging your car from your solar even when you're at work... In a sort of diffuse way. ?

All cars, and all chargers acting as potential battery storage for the grid while connected. We could get complicated and say under normal grid load scenarios your car will not supply power into the grid until it's reached its desired charge level, however, if there is a high demand event, your car may stop charging and supply power briefly. This would be unpopular, but makes sense IMO. Perhaps this could be abused a little by utilities.

Robotaxies might make all of this less useful in that they'll spend a lot less time idle while connected to chargers.

 

[Crissa]

I drive over 10-15k miles a year, but my car still only moves 2/7 days of the week on average. They're not all weekend trips, most trips are to the hardware or grocery store.

That's alot of days it could be helping the grid instead.

Of course, if your truck works every day instead, the grid part isn't as useful to you. Same for if power rarely goes out for you, or never stays out.

But there's no reason this feature needs to be manufacturer specific. It's just access to the battery.

-Crissa

 

[tidmutt]

I drive over 10-15k miles a year, but my car still only moves 2/7 days of the week on average. They're not all weekend trips, most trips are to the hardware or grocery store.

That's alot of days it could be helping the grid instead.

Of course, if your truck works every day instead, the grid part isn't as useful to you. Same for if power rarely goes out for you, or never stays out.

But there's no reason this feature needs to be manufacturer specific. It's just access to the battery.

-Crissa

Yeah, this is where we may need regulation. If all houses eventually must be wired for V2X and all cars are too and then everyone participates when they are charging. Some more than others, but that's okay. The difference is negligible. Some compensation on the power bill should entice most people to stay plugged in. Those who are not home as much don't receive as much of a rebate on their utility bill, so it works out.

It's all a bit utopian I know.

 

[Cyber Canuck]

V2H sounds great, but if you need to spend thousands more just for the capability like the Lightning solution count me out. Only thing I want is 240V outlet with minimum 30 amps, enough to power a few essentials during a rare outage.

I already have an affordable 30 amp generator interlock kit installed in my panel, would be just a matter of hooking up the CT to the external inlet, this will be enough to power essentials like furnace, fridge and freezers for days. Or get a transfer switch.

Total cost less than $100 for parts since I already had the breaker.

 

[Crissa]

I already have an affordable 30 amp generator interlock kit installed in my panel, would be just a matter of hooking up the CT to the external inlet, this will be enough to power essentials like furnace, fridge and freezers for days. Or get a transfer switch.

Total cost less than $100 for parts since I already had the breaker.

Exactly, there's very little reason this needs to be complicated.

The CCS or CHAdeMO port already has DC wires to the battery. It doesn't need to be fancy to run some circuits. I don't understand why it's $10k for the Ford panel. $10k buys you alot of inverters.

-Crissa

 

[Deleted member 4261]

Exactly, there's very little reason this needs to be complicated.

The CCS or CHAdeMO port already has DC wires to the battery. It doesn't need to be fancy to run some circuits. I don't understand why it's $10k for the Ford panel. $10k buys you alot of inverters.

-Crissa

Without competition they can, quite a few other car manufacturers are now including V2L, the latest models from MG and Korean vehicles here in the U.K. all come with it, not sure if the leads are included.

 

[Ogre]

V2H sounds great, but if you need to spend thousands more just for the capability like the Lightning solution count me out. Only thing I want is 240V outlet with minimum 30 amps, enough to power a few essentials during a rare outage.

I already have an affordable 30 amp generator interlock kit installed in my panel, would be just a matter of hooking up the CT to the external inlet, this will be enough to power essentials like furnace, fridge and freezers for days. Or get a transfer switch.

Total cost less than $100 for parts since I already had the breaker.

This is what most people care about. Super fancy auto-connect that happens instantly and costs 10,000 or more are not going to be popular.

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